Black Christmas (1974)
Directed by: Bob Clark
Starring: Olivia Hussey, Margot Kidder, Andrea Martin, Keir Dullea and John Saxon
Genre: Horror / Slasher
Rated: R
Its Christmas time and the girls of Pi Kappa Sig are getting ready to head home for the holidays. They begin receiving obscene phone calls, but think of them as nothing more than a demented prank. As they go about their celebrations an intruder goes unnoticed creeping into the house. As the girls are killed off one by one, our heroine, Jess, alerts the police and together they try and catch the killer.
Noted as the First American Slasher, Black Christmas (1974) has become a cult classic for genre fans, and it is easy to see why. This film has all of the elements that make up a great horror film - the most prominent of these being the atmosphere. Despite the fact that inside the house appears to be cozy and cheery, the viewer can’t help having a sense of dread. After all, the audience knows what the characters do not – that there is someone else in the house. The exterior of the home is only showed in shadow and at night, making it appear a lot more ominous than the real house actually was. We also get a few point of view shots from the killer as he breaks into the house, spies on the girls and prepares for a kill.
The kill scenes are modest, but ultimately more effective. Only three of the deaths are shown onscreen, yet only one of them really shows the death. The audience gets the idea of how the character is being murdered, but doesn’t actually see it happening. As most horror films post early 1970s delved into the use of special effects and gore, this film is a nice change of pace. The amount of blood is minimal and many of the deaths go unseen, playing into the suspense factor.
This film does keep up the suspense throughout the entire story, both dealing with the killer hiding in the attic, the creepy phone calls, and the subplots that interconnect. The audience is always wondering if that phone ringing is the killer calling the girls (and if it is, what he is going to say – as each call gets progressively more disturbing) who is going to die or what Jess is going to do about her own problems. It helps that the characters are likable and fleshed out well enough for the actors to give them each a presence.
The acting and characterization in this film is very well done. The characters are believable as college students and friends and also very memorable. Olivia Hussey was already a seasoned actress before she took the leading role as Jess and she was great as usual. However, it’s Margot Kidder’s Barb that steals the show as the sarcastic alcoholic of the group. Barb is not afraid to fire back at anyone, from the obscene phone caller to the police sergeant, and creates a bit of comic relief in an otherwise dark film. It’s also nice to see that these girls are more than just two-dimensional knife fodder, as both Jess and Barb clearly have other things going on in their lives. After them, Ms. Mac, the housemother, is the most memorable, with her sarcastic remarks and hidden collection of booze – quite possibly a future Barb. Keir Dullea is convincing as Jess’s neurotic and somewhat intimidating boyfriend, Peter. The other girls, Phyl (Andrea Martin) and Claire, stand out much less, but fit into the mold just fine.
I really liked how this film tackled issues that many films today are still afraid to tackle: abortion and alcoholism. Many films show a character who drinks constantly, but not many bother to look into why. Its clear that Barb’s alcoholism stems from a bad relationship with her mother. Abortion was a fairly new thing in the 1970s, legally speaking, so to have a character in a film contemplating the idea is a brave move on the part of the writers and director. These two elements really stand out, marking this as one of the first intelligent slasher films bold enough to try something a bit different.
Overall: Great acting, camera work, characterization and atmosphere make this film the classic it has become. It is suspenseful and claustrophobic, but also intelligent. It deals with real issues that affect college students making the characters more believable and likable. Tie into that a little taste of humor and you’ve got quite the amazing film.
8.5/10
Black Christmas (2006)
Directed by: Glen Morgan
Starring: Katie Cassidy, Michelle Trachtenberg, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Lacey Chabert, Kristen Cloke, and Andrea Martin
Genre: Horror / Slasher
Rated: R
If anyone has been following my blog, they know that I’m very tough on remakes. This one is no exception, especially considering how unnecessary this remake was. In my opinion, the original holds up very well as far as relatable characters, suspense, atmosphere and chills, but apparently Hollywood begs to differ. Enter Black Christmas (2006), a modern retelling that adds little to the story and takes quite a bit away.
The plot is very similar to the original film. Once again we have a house full of sorority sisters preparing for the holidays and receiving creepy phone calls. One by one, over the course of an evening, the girls start to be picked off by an escaped mental patient who once called their house his home.
In this version, we learn a lot more about “Billy and Agnes” – the two names used frequently in the disturbing calls the girls received in the original film. While the killer’s back story was kept a secret in 1974, the 2006 version brings the audience yet another tale of twisted abuse and neglect that made the killer do the things he does. The 1974 phone calls hinted at something sinister that had happened, this film held nothing back. Severe child abuse and cannibalism? Sure, why not?
Along with the mystery surrounding the killer, the creepy atmosphere is gone too. There aren’t any point of view shots and the house doesn’t seem ominous in the least. The film was supposed to take place during a snow storm (how original) but I didn’t even realize that until halfway through the film. The phone calls aren’t really that scary either – they try to capture the essence of the original calls but lack the intensity. Plus, these calls are clearly scripted while the originals were improvised by director Bob Clark.
Not only did this remake remove all mystery surrounding the killer and the eerie atmosphere of the 1974 classic, it sucked the personalities out of the sorority girls as well. That was really disappointing considering the cast of well-known actresses like Katie Cassidy, Michelle Trachtenberg, Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Lacey Chabert – all of which have promising careers ahead of them. The only girl that stood out was Cassidy as the heroine, Kelli. All of the others blended together in a rather monotonous stream of victims. Winstead’s character is supposed to be from the south, but we only hear a bit of a southern accent in one portion of dialogue from her. Trachtenberg’s Melissa is supposed to be the more caring sister, but even that is barely shown. There was also an attempt to revive Margot Kidder’s Barb in the character of Lauren, but while Barb had a sharp wit, Lauren comes off as angry at the world and rather unlikable.
In addition to what was removed from the original story, unnecessary clichés were also brought to it. As aforementioned, I didn’t really like having the back story provided for “Billy and Agnes.” I personally find it creepier not knowing anything about past events and the killer him or herself. The fact that the audience never learns anything about the killer in the original makes it stand out. Instead, the viewer receives another version of the current horror cliché – the extremely abusive childhood that made the killer snap. We also have a nude shower scene and a sex tape that are utterly pointless and add nothing to the story. We also get the classic “power failure in the middle of the storm” scare and the death while checking the fuse box, as well as the old “severed head falling out of the car” gag. It feels like the people behind this wanted to make this as unoriginal as possible.
The kills tried to pay homage to the deaths in the original film – but didn’t work as well. They happened too fast for my liking, focusing more on the gruesome aspects than on the suspense and helpless atmosphere. Instead of deaths barely seen, we have characters choked and stabbed in rapid succession, and many shots of eyes being gouged out and then eaten by the killer. That’s not so much scary as it is gross.
There were a few things I liked about the film, however. I really liked that Andrea Martin (Phyl from the 1974 version) was brought back as the house mother. I thought that was a very nice touch and fun little homage. Also, the use of the crystal unicorn (a very memorable prop from the original) as a murder weapon was another nice nod to the film’s predecessor. The gore effects weren’t bad either, though slightly redundant.
Overall: This film had the potential to be quite good with the talented cast, bigger budget, and modern special effects. Instead, writer/director Glen Morgan decided to use gross-out gore and every cliché he could think of to turn a classic film into typical modern teenybopper slasher drivel.
4.5/10
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